engine chips for a van, make much difference?

My diesel van goes okay but sometimes could do with a bit more poke than 102bhp for over-taking and up hills, particularly when loaded. Seen these engine chips on ebay for about £80 which reckon they give about 20% more power,torque and economy and are easy to fit – do they and are they? Or better to go to a pro re-mapping fitting place, which seem to charge about £3-400? cheers

I would not put a ebay chip on any vehicle. You’d never get a 20% increase for £80.

Having it mapped may improve it but you should inform your insurance too, increased premiums ahoy!

As Breadcrumb said, these plug in modules basically bung in more fuel and produce more smoke.

Do it properly, get a remap which will adjust fueling, boost and a load more engine things in a balanced fashion so your van gets through its emissions test next mot.

Admited, plug in boxes may be more sophisticated now but a remap is way better.

If its a VW, try PendlePerformance, they have a very good rep on teh T5 forum…

Remap all the way.
Those chips are generic and may be harmful to your engine. All the do is confuse your ECU into thinking more or less air is entering the manifold, thus increasing the fuel flow. There are alot more parameters that need to be taken into account.
You can get tuning boxes that plug into the OBD2 port, these have a bespoke map for your car. Often you can get a few maps wich you can switch between. Useful if your car gets serviced by a main stealer. About £200.
A rolling road map is even better but more £££.

I have a map loaded onto my ECU, the guy comes to your car, fiddles with it, drives it and then if you’re happy, loads the map for you. Its permanent though.
Always read the reviews and dont go for the cheapest!

Try Angel Tuning.

Had my wife’s 147 Q2 done over 2 years ago and it still puts a grin on my face every time I drive it.

No real change in BHP (less than 5) but torque is up to 288lb/ft.

This was all done on a rolling road with before and after print outs and cost just over £200 but this was done as a club deal through alfaowner.com

You said its a 102 so guessing T4 or T5 ?

I wouldn’t go for a plug in thingy for £80 personally, as said above they just screw with your ecu and over fuel causing smoke.

Get a proper remap done its a far better solution. I had a 102bhp T4 and had it remapped properly and ended up with 151bhp on a rolling road, the increase in Torque made the bigger difference though. And fuel consumption went down a fair bit too.

I now have a 150bh T4 remapped to 187bhp (rolling road again) and the torque is fantastic ! Goes like a rocked and does 45mpg average

Ok cheers all, you have confirmed what I suspected, am always a bit suspicious if something sounds to good to be true, and the iffy looking feedback which often looks rather too positive and gushing. Proper re-map it is. Any places recommended in Bournemouth / Soton area to do it?

Diesel Bob is v good.for remaps

I went for the £80.00 plug in chip, supplied and fitted by a recommended local guy . He’d already fitted a couple of mates vans and they are very happy with the results . Had mine 4 months and getting around 10% better mpg and better torque in 5th , I don’t thrash it so haven’t noticed much of an improvement through the gears but it definitely pulls better in 5th.

I had my Transit 115 properly mapped by Diesel Bob to improved the mid range so it now pulls like a mule in top gear for motorway overtaking and hills 8)

Diesel Bob’s not much use for you though as he’s oop norf!! A lot of the transit boys recommend this guy who’s near Uxbridge http://vantuner.co.uk/

Give these guys a go. Well regarded on the t5 forum.

Closest agent in the link to you is Portsmouth.

Pendle performance agent

Not sure what age your van is but the earlier t5s (up to 2010) with the 1.9 should see around 140bhp. I think they get a bit more out of the newer t5.1s (2010 onwards).

Pendle is good for VW. I had my 85hp T5 mapped up to 140hp….loads better. 😆

Sorry to highjack but nealglover, can I ask who you used for the 102bhp T4?

Thanks

Can someone please explain how this works?

I can see that the standard setup will have been optimised by the manufacturer for a particular set of trade-offs, and these can be tweaked if, for example, one wants better performance or better fuel consumption. But if some sort of reprogramming can improve both these parameters what gets compromised as a result? If it’s so good why don’t the manufacturers just set things up this way in the first place?

Be wary of rolling roads claims, I can get you a guaranteed 20bhp on the rollers just form a washer fluid change! 😉

If you want to know how powerful your car is (and can’t afford an engine dyno), find out what your terminal speed is over a 1/4 mile and use the formula that’s floating around, it’s actually pretty reliable and repeatable (unlike chassis dynos).

sorry meant to say it’s not a VW t4 or t5, it’s a Toyota with a D4D 102 engine, I contacted a few of the places mentionned above and they say they don’t do Jap engines, bah, just waiting for Pendle to reply.
Oddly Toyota do do 120 and 144 versions of the same engine so I wonder how they do it.

Lorax,

Basically the manufacturer will have a generic map the is loaded onto all vehicles that is the same, and very very safe for all circumstances.

A good tuner will then be able to do a rolling road run and set the vehicle up much better for what you want or to push the boundaries a bit further. A bad one however will probably just download a ‘tweaked’ map and bang it on regardless of vehicle or set up.

Infact several manu’s e.g. VW actually release several power models i.e. 90, 110, 150 etc. that all run the same engine and parts, it’s only the map that sets them apart. They just manage to charge more for the higher power variants.

I’ve been running a Pendal Performance remapped VW T5 for 5 years now and it’s been faultless. I have also done a DPF delete too, but we’ll save that one for sensitive sorts as looking at some posts I may as well have clubbed a baby seal to death instead.

If your van is a few years old with a choked up EGR there’s gains to be had just from cleaning that out or blanking it off. Very easy to do on a VW, not sure about Toyota. Mine was jammed solid with black soot and when I cleaned it it felt like I’d fitted a bigger turbo.

I’m a bit far away from Pendle so been to my local Sedox to ask about a rolling road tune up. Not much change from £300 but massive torque gains to be made from a 2.5 Tdi.

Be wary of rolling roads claims,

I know they are not mega accurate. But measured twice before and twice after. I’m happy with the results.

To get from 150 to 187 I also had the EGR deleted from the ECU and had a straight pipe fitted instead of the catalytic converter (in addition to the custom remap.)

Sorry to highjack but nealglover, can I ask who you used for the 102bhp T4?
Thanks

A friend of mine did it a couple of years ago, Nathan at http://www.Wagenworx.co.uk

Tell him Hobbit Glover sent you. (He’ll charge you a bit extra 😉 )

Mmm. Chips…

Thanks nealglover.

Thanks Blazin-saddles. That makes sense, although I still don’t see what the trade-offs are. Unless the lower-powered variants are simply hobbled (which may be true in some cases, but surely not all) it is surely the case that something (presumably fuel consumption, but perhaps there are other factors) is lost in return for more power. Alternatively I can see that one might want the power distribution shifted from the default, but this would merely be a case of providing it elsewhere in the range, not actually adding anything.

It’s not totally true that the vw engines are identical apart from the map they are very similar but some parts are different. e.g. the 90bhp ones didn’t have an intercooler and had a fixed vane turbo, the 110 and 130 had both of the above and the 150 had a different turbo again to give more boost.
There aren’t many trade offs, I’ve had 3 vans remapped and never had the fuel economy worsen (1 static, 1 slightly improved,1 10%+ improved) and they’ve all been much nice to drive with the work done. The remap and greater power/torque do put greater strain on components (clutch, drive shaft etc) but if you drive sensibly this impact is minimal.